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- Verified Buyer
I basically agree with Jeffrey's review but wanted to add/debate a few of his points.To add: if you're someone who reads other works about queers, whether white queers and/or queers of color, this book presents a different take on ideas many of us have been exposed to a lot by examining the gay Filipino male diaspora. One major example is the idea of the effeminate gay Asian male and interracial relationships with white males, which also brings to mind the popular discourse (in some circles) about the prevalence of (and why) Asian female/white male relationships. The author discusses a lot of centralities to gay Filipino male identity, such as religion and family, and backs up his points with quotes from his interviews with gay Filipino males, i.e. "informants." These informants often reframe the "why" of Asian/white male interracial relationships away from the typical response of white oppression/control and self-hatred towards the suggestion that many Asians may simply be, in a sense, using white males' status (primarily financially) to get what they want/need, thus presenting the image of the Asian as the one who actually has some control. This is not to say there isn't any real love in these relationships, as one informant basically makes clear.Another "why" framed in a new light is the possibility that many gay Asian males embrace and even self-label themselves in feminine terms as opposed to Asian male femininity being a negative that is always imposed on Asian males by racist/sexist/etc whites, regardless of sexual orientation, as some Asian writers such as David Eng seem to suggest. Other incredibly interesting ideas presented in this book are that many Filipinos don't feel accepted/connected with other Asians and even reject being labeled "Asian," and the notion that "coming out" is a white American ideal that is shunned in the Philippines. The book also demonstrates that many of these men do not come to the US looking to assimilate or, if they do, assimilation for these men is essentially impossible, not so much because whites won't allow them to but more because of unbreakable ties to their homeland. Many of these ideas are very similar to ones you'll find in works by other non-Asian queer of color writers, especially the idea of blatant outness being more of a white norm.However, the major task of the work seems to be demonstrating the ways in which gay Filipino males who immigrate to the US/NYC integrate various/divergent aspects of their identities (race, class, sexuality, gender, nationality)/homeland with aspects of their new home, creating spaces for themselves where they don't fit in (i.e. the white gay community, despite many white gay males' affinity for [feminine and darker/yellow] gay Asian males) and creating the identity and freedom that they, in a sense, have always longed for. I completely agree with Jeffrey's point about NYC/CA, and I've noticed that a lot of queer writers mainly seem to discuss major areas.To debate: I don't read this book to have a lot of academic jargon; actually quite the contrary. I have found most--if not, every other--queer studies books that I've read to be more difficult to understand because of academic jargon and/or native language that was not always translated. Given that experience, I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I must admit, I'm not a Filipino immigrant (I'm also black, like Jeffrey), and I'm a lawyer. I'm not from a queer studies background and have only read such books for courses in school, and I found them very frustrating (including Anzaldua, Moraga and Eng)--with the exception of this book. The author is a fantastic, very clear writer and is far from being overly-academic, and he consistently translates everything from Tagalog and Swardspeak to English. What is most problematic about the way he writes probably is the fact that he throws so many non-English terms at the reader, but that, of course, wouldn't necessarily be a problem for Filipino readers.Final debate--there are certainly racist ideas presented in the book, but I think Jeffrey gives the impression that these ideas come from the author himself when they really don't. He simply conveys what many Filipinos think about Latinos and, particularly, blacks--many of these thoughts coming from what his informants had to say. I take the discussions of race as presenting a double-view of all the races+Latinos in the US, i.e. these Filipino informants have problems with everybody here but there is also some level of embrace of everyone, as well. With whites, it's the rejection from the gay community and the US in general (immigration services, police, etc) vs. primary relationships being interracial with whites; with Asians, not feeling like they belong with other Asians vs forming groups/organizations with some of them; with blacks and Latinos, placing blacks and Latinos below them on the social hierarchy vs feeling like they identify more with black and Latino drag queens/shows/spaces as well as some even identifying more with Latinos than Asians, period. If anything, the informants acknowledge the value of whiteness over color in their homeland and how that has affected them/their decisions about dating/friendship (as well as how this affects their views of Filipino immigrants from a different class station than theirs), but also say that being in the US allows them to forge relationships with people they never would have back home. Indeed, some of the informants were dating Latino or black men.Other than that, I also highly recommend this book. It is an easy, engaging read, and demonstrates that not everyone fits into the white American discourse/ideals of what being queer is, queer community and what all queers do or should do.
